Saturday was the 22nd annual "Crusing Downtown Manchester" event up in Manchester, NH. I loaded the car up Thursday night and left right after work Friday. There were close to 2,000 cars this year and they literally shut down the main road to let cars park on both sides. It's absolutely nuts. My friends' orange '69 Chevelle SS and red '71 El Camino took home a top 50 award each. I also hung out with @Paintworks for a bit. He had the perfect spot with his Sportwagon under a huge tree, which was a perfect reprieve from the sun. Anyone relatively close to Manchester needs to check this out next year. Basically all of the stuff is top notch.
I put about 150 miles on the car last week between a show and 2 cruise nights - one of which I drove it to work. At the show last Sunday, I hadn't even finished setting up shop when a gentleman - who I'm convinced was drunk - asked if it was for sale. I respectfully said it wasn't, to which he replied: "I'll give you $20K" A minute later, the offer was $40K and I (again) said it wasn't for sale. A couple hours later, he comes back and again asks if I'd sell it. Politely but with a bit of emphasis, I declined. "Well, I won't waste your time." You'll notice mom's earning her keep, too.
I finally made it to New England Dragway in NH. My friend and I towed the cars up early Friday afternoon and we made a total of 5 passes throughout the evening. The place was absolutely jammed and after 25 years, I'd forgotten how much of a lower tier facility that place was. Of the 4 hours allotted for racing, 2 of them were spent cleaning spills off of the track with shotty equipment. For an NHRA sanctioned track, you'd figure they'd have better equipment. Nonetheless, neither of us broke anything and I learned (very quickly) in that left lane that trying to race a 4-speed is no easy task - especially with no line lock. I wasn't overly thrilled with my E.T. but my 103 MPH says the car will run quicker. My 60 foot time was terrible. I'll get back up there at some point next year with some minor adjustments/tweaks but I have no intention of sacrificing drivabilaty for a better elapsed time. Whatever it runs next year will suffice. I enjoy it too much to start going crazy in a quest for speed. https://youtube.com/shorts/VFk6ZzFoido?si=50Z-tiFlwB4EDc1e
Annnnnnd we're back. I took the car out of hibernation today. A little fuel in the front bowls, a couple pumps and it fired right up. I ran all my errands, totaling about 30 ish miles without a hitch. I also installed my resilvered Scott Winn mirror without going through the hassle of removing the windlace, A-pillar cover and map light wire. The caveat is: the map light door broke in half trying to get it out. I posted in Parts Wanted if anyone has one. Nonetheless, we're back on the road for 2024.
I've never been able to close the upper vent housed in the driver's side of the dash pad and after much procrastination, I dug into the kick panel and found out why: The cable housing was broken in half. Two new ones will be here later in the week from Inline Tube. I'd rate this job a solid 7 on the suck factor. It'll be nice to have a functional vent but man, what a bitch to get out. After a half hour of wrangling - some of which was with Cook on the phone making fun of me - I realized opening the lower vent door will allow the panel to be less rigid, thereby making it easier to bend to get out. As per Cook's kick panel thread: the amount of goop from Fisher Body equaled the size of a softball. Much less insulation will be on it once it's ready to go back in. I have a can of SEM Laundau Black here and may touch this up. Additionally, I noticed the bucket seat back was a bit chalky, so those will likely be the next project. I'm also bringing the carpet to an upholstery shop this week. Since it's basically a template, I can't imagine making a pair would be that difficult. 3M Adhesive spray will be used to affix the carpet back on the panel. I'm not messing around with those staples - or new ones - on 54 year old plastic.
Your lap belt retractors are installed on the wrong sides The belt should lay toward the door when it's fully retracted.
I think that's because I bumped it with my leg but I'll check. I was wrestling in that interior for a while yesterday.
There's an upholstery shop near work that quite a few people spoke highly of, so I brought my kick panel carpet in yesterday afternoon to see what they could do. Turns out they have the same loop carpet with the same thickness and the vinyl bead with the same grain. Priced similarly to Legendary without the 6 month wait. I'll post pictures when I pick them up.
